


bubblegum and meat in the dark room

by orphan_account



Series: ndrv3: before the rapture [1]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: F/F, Lesbians, huh, vr au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 08:50:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16615796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kaede and the queen of flies live different lives in the same day.





	bubblegum and meat in the dark room

**Author's Note:**

> :3

It hurts to realize you only died so someone else could live their life differently. It hurts even more to know that you only lived to die in the first place. 

Kaede shuffles in her sleep. Tenko barely breathes in hers.

Shuichi and Himiko don’t sleep at all.

When the sun rises, so does Kaede. She has a lot to do, and not much time to do it. Get dressed. Brush her hair. Take a warm shower that soon turns into a cold shower. Eat breakfast in the cafeteria. (Tastes like silicon.) Walk to the Team Danganronpa exclusive pharmacy and buy deodorant shaped like Monokuma’s head. Open all of her letters hoping one of her junkies will have sent her cigarettes. Failing that, burn them all but keep the money. Regret burning them because her head is dizzy and her throat’s clogged, which is all too familiar. Open the window. Think about climbing out the window, then remember the guard dogs and sentries surrounding the facility. Just breathe. Stick her head back inside and sweep the ashy remains of her fan mail into the bin. Use her half an hour of permitted screen time to upvote people calling her waifubait on Reddit, because really, she was. Go to the cafeteria again and eat leftover pancakes because the freezer failed and all the beef for the burgers spoiled. Demand beef anyways, and stack the slices of rotten meat in her backpack, one on top of the other. Ruminate on Team Danganronpa’s failures for a full minute before heading to the lounge. Order a martini from the teenager behind the bar for the fifty-third time this month. Be told she’s not allowed to become intoxicated while on the premises of Team Danganronpa’s housing facility in monotone for the fifty-third time this month. Get a lemonade. Pour out the lemonade when she notices the dead bug fly at the bottom. Keep the slice of lemon. Checkers with Ryoma and Kiyo. Lose, win, lose, lose, win, lose, win, lose, lose, lose. Ignore Shuichi. Ignore Shuichi. Ignore Shuichi. Get two more lemonades just for the lemon slices, and offer Ryoma and Kiyo two lemons. Smile at their bemusement when they take them. Walk back to the dorm. Squeeze out the lemon and suck on the rind, for no apparent reason. Take a nap. Wake up with itching eyes and a very sore neck. Walk to the cafeteria. Eat the peanut butter sandwich prepared in haste. Walk back to the dorm, fully intending to go to bed at 7 pm. Take a shower first, as she stinks of meat, the water warm this time. Forget to put in earplugs. Fall asleep with wet hair, wrapped in a towel and nothing else. Wake up naked at 2 am. Get dressed. Impulsively decide to trigger the fire alarm, because the lemon slice has hardly provided enough zest to her life. Watch them scatter like ants. Watch Shuichi. Stop watching Shuichi, because that’s a very bad idea. Go out through the fire escape. Notice that Team Danganronpa can’t afford to hire sentries full-time, so all she has to face are the guard dogs now. Throw the old meat that she’s got in her backpack still dog-wards. Regret that, as she doesn’t really want the dogs to die. Don’t regret it enough to perform the Heimleich. Head into the courtyard rather than launch a grand escape due to lack of enthusiasm. Sit in the grass for half a hot second, consider taking off boots. Take off boots. Regret taking off boots, and put them back on. Stare at limp and formless sky. Close eyes as it begins to rain. Notice Tenko.

Notice Tenko? 

Kaede startles, and it’s obvious to her that her mind’s switching gears. Tenko sits, staring out at the sky, picking at a scab on her leg. Her hair is pulled into a sharp braid, stark against her pale face. Loafers and a modest peasant gown set the tone for the following conversation, Kaede thinks. She would prefer for her own bubblegum punk attire to define this undoubtably soon-to-be-uncomfortable altercation. It’s a shame. She would have preferred... something over this milquetoast, predictable nonsense. Something of substance. 

“Are you ready for ReWrite?” Tenko says hoarsely, and, oh wow, Kaede did not expect that opener. Her opinion of Tenko rises, just slightly. She’s not out of tier Least-Likely-To-Throw-Me-A-Surprise-Birthday-Parade yet, but the fact that she subverted Kaede’s expectations has to count for SOMETHING. The rain intensifies. Kaede scoots closer. 

“Nope.” She says airily. “I will never have the situation under control. I have the memories of a preppie in my head, after all. And now they want me to be a real person? Nah.” Tenko exhales, and Kaede’s surprised she breathed in in the first place. “And you... aren’t? Uh, that?” Kaede scoffs. “Hell nah.” Then, in a dull monotone- “I’m a mountain biking vampire witch from the future.” She reaches over to scratch Tenko’s bug bite for her. She permits it. Another surprise. Kaede smiles, sickly like her pastel tones. “I feel sorry for you,” Tenko says. “Having to go through the day wearing... that.” “Don’t be! It suits me. It is a hassle though. No pockets, just layers and layers of tulle. My boots are big enough to hide any shit anyways, so no real loss. And I have, y’know, a backpack.” Interestingly enough, this seems to be small talk, which Kaede was entirely certain she had forgotten how to do. Tenko hasn’t. Midwest born and bred. “I don’t have any pockets either.” Tenko intones. “It’s so you buy MonoMono bags.” “I... know.”

Silence, then. Not comfortable, not awkward, just there. A blind spot between a conversation, like there should be words there, but aren’t. The rain doubles. Kaede wonders if she’ll drown soon. But she doesn’t. It just rains. 

Kaede finds the words as she rifles through her backpack, just to occupy her hands. “So, are you still a lesbian?” Tenko blinks. The water splattered across her eyelashes is pretty. She’s pretty. Quite the revelation! Kaede even surprises herself, sometimes. She feels glad that she got a close up before she asks this question. “Homosexuality is a sin,” Tenko says, and she’s bored, Kaede can tell. When you care it becomes easier to tell when someone else doesn’t. “Do you care about kissing me? Because normally I wouldn’t, but you surprised me and even if you didn’t you’re still pretty hot, even in beige.” Tenko frowns. Her hair is limp around her face and there’s a fly caught in her sodden braid. Kaede begins to smell the remains of the rotten meat through the backpack. It’s scent must be saturated by the rain, she thinks. Distantly, dogs are barking. They’ll be rounding up the stragglers soon. Kaede and Tenko aren’t the only ones trying to inhale as much wet, wet sky as they can. “Okay.”

Kaede leans in. 

Tenko’s lips are cold. She’s wearing lipstick, which is another surprising thing. Kaede couldn’t tell in the darkness from earlier. But she can tell now. It tastes waxy, but alive. Tenko is alive. She probably won’t be soon. After ReWrite, you don’t get a second chance. Kaede will be. She knows this. She’s never going to lose all these sights and scents and smells, so she can’t die. Tenko can though, and will. When the final trial comes, it’ll be Kaede who remembers the aroma of the expired patties and the lemons on her tongue and the fly in the bottom of her cup, the fly ensnared in Tenko’s hair. And Tenko will be dead because nobody cares but Kaede.

Kaede’s veil flops over her face. Tenko notices. “You didn’t tell me you were a bride, too. Along with... all those other things.” Then Kaede says, “Let’s get married,” and then Tenko says “Okay.”

(Tenko dies just as Kaede predicted, but Kaede dies too, strangled by her own veil. As it turns out, remembering a glass of lemonade you drank two months ago won’t save you.)


End file.
